Waiting
by Laura31325
Summary: Short story about a girl, a doctor, a nurse.


Notes: Deemo is not mine.

Deemo: ...

Girl: Ana

Masked lady: Sairai

1: Deemo

He have a new patient. She is young and looked ever so tiny and fragile in her hospital gown, laying in her bed, seeming to be peacefully asleep. She has been in a coma since the car accident that also took away her pianist father's life. He did not talk to her, this Ana. There was no reason to. She would not hear him anyway.

Sairai brought an electric piano into the hospital room. She says that it was good to have the patient listen to some music. She asks him to play.

"There's no harm to use your talent, you know," the nurse chides him whenever he declines. He does not understand why she keeps trying. It was a bitter reminder, she knows perfectly well, a reminder of his failure. However, he eventually agrees to her insistent nagging.

The girl's heartbeat beats in tempo with his music. Sairai smiles at her bedside, and talks in low, useless murmurs to the unconscious girl.

"See," she says in private, "I told you she'll like it."

He thinks it was simply a coincidence.

He grows attached to the girl. She did nothing but lie there, not waking, yet he grows attached. She looks better, more alive and less dull. Sairai sometimes thinks she see Ana's eyes move under her eyelids, or her little figure twitch. He was a doctor, so he dare not hope.

He continues to play for her.

Ana stopped, and for a second he stood there wondering why, even though it was his job to find out. He throws himself into research, while Sairai worries, rages. She does not understand.

"Why are you trying so hard?" She asks, knowing he wouldn't answer.

He finds the answer, but the nurse did not rejoice as he did. She was insistently bitter as the days wore on, and he knows she suspects of his decision. He understands her border frantic distrust of his movements, fearing he would slip away between her fingers and out of sight like a handful of sand, but he has already decided. That fact makes her more panicked and scared, although she does not voice it. He can't be sure she doesn't, since he does not bother to listen to the harsher whispers she speaks when she talks into the Ana's ear, nor does he ask. Ana does not hear them anyway.

And Sairai rages on.

Will he do it?

Sairai weeps.

A month later a lone girl sets Magnolia flowers front of his grave. She whisper a thanks, a tear streaking down her cheek, because she knows, deep in the heart that once was his, that he could not hear it anyway.

"Thank you."

"Deemo"

2: Sairai

He have a new patient. She was a delicate girl, broken and near death, with no one precious in this world. She reminded Sairai of herself. Her heart twists painfully in her chest as she looks at the patient, this Ana, and she longs to rush to her side, hold her hand, and tell her everything was going to be alright. Like what she had wished someone would have done for her. She sees the doctor look at his new patient and she knows he wanted just as much for the poor girl. She sees him steel his heart and turn away. He was a doctor. Sairai's heart breaks a little and she transferred to that ward, to Ana. She would talk to her in his stead.

Sairai brings an electric piano into the hospital room. Ana was the daughter of a pianist, so she thinks the familiar sound of piano notes would do something to help. She asks the doctor to play for her. It was perfect. The pianist who sorely needed an audience, and a patient who needed the sound of a piano.

He tries to decline her request, but eventually agrees. He signs "fine" rather exasperatedly with a hand after she bothered him intensely for a week.

He unconsciously plays to the beat of Ana's heart as Sairai sits by her bedside, enjoying the rare opportunity to hear his playing. She squeezes Ana's hand gently in her own, whispering best as she could comfort and assurance that everything would be okay. She knows Ana would not hear those words, but she thinks she says them more to herself than to her.

He eventually returns from his piano-induced daze and Sairai smiles encouragingly at the doctor when he looks into her eyes and silently begs any signs—any signs at all of acknowledgement.

Later that day as they were packing to leave for the night, she says privately to him, "See, I told you she'll like it."

He looks at her with confused, uncomprehending eyes. Sairai convinces herself he was simply in denial.

Ana looked better. She was right about the piano. Sometimes as she sits beside the girl, Sairai thinks she might have moved a fraction. She tells the doctor this to keep his spirits up. He continues to play for Ana, and Sairai knows he was hoping. She does not understand her irrational fear, but she starts to worry.

She felt cold.

Ana's health was failing, and the doctor throws himself into books. Sairai sees him less and less on the piano and with Ana, and sees him more in the library or talking to other doctors. His health worsens with the patient's. Sairai tries to stop him, to get some rest, to eat, or at least drink more water. He does not listen, as always.

He thinks she is the one that does not understand. But he was the one that doesn't. Sairai could see it clearly: Him working himself half to death— or even all the way to, Ana by herself in a lonely, silent place, Sairai herself being unable to help and ever so alone. He does not understand. She thinks he never would.

She feels so frustrated.

"Why are you trying so hard?"

Ana has a fatal heart problem. She needs a transplant to live, and the doctor is acting weird. He might be able to fool anyone else, but Sairai could tell. He was plotting something, and she knows she wouldn't like it. She thinks she already knows what he was planning. Sairai knows she can't stop him.

And so she rages on.

She wants to cry.

Inevitable.

She weeps.

The lone girl stands up from the grave and walks to where she stoically stood.

Ana smiles. Sairai looks away. She holds out her hand and takes Ana's small ones in hers.

"Let's go."

She did not look back.


End file.
